The Vapors: Elena Kagan in Danger of Losing Supreme Court Election

The New York Daily News’ Washington bureau
reports on
the latest USA Today/Gallup poll:

Today’s
Gallup/USA Today Poll
has Elena Kagan in some perilous territory in its survey out this morning, with only two other would-be justices getting lower approval marks at this stage — and they both failed to make it onto the high court.

The survey finds 46% of Americans favoring Kagan’s confirmation, versus 32% who oppose it. That would seem to be decent at first glance, but the only other nominees polling under 50% were Harriet Miers at 44% in 2005 and Robert Bork at 31% in 1987.

Meanwhile,
Reuters is reporting
that
Jeff Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committe’s Republican minority, has “voiced concern…about what he called ‘a leftist philosophy’ expressed by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a young clerk for liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall.”

It is not clear how undecided voters may react to the news that a clerk for a liberal justice expressed liberal views. But the Daily News reports:

With 22% of Americans undecided about Kagan, there’s a large pool for opponents to tap.